But wasn't this because they rejected confession to priests, the infallibility of the Pope, paying indulgences etc. From my understanding the doctrines were pretty much the same just without the dogma and tradition.
Sorry Brian, I didn't mean to answer in a curt manner. I'll try to answer a bit more factually shortly. Sugar spike. Don't you hate it when that happens?
It's fine bro. Just answer with what you're comfortable sharing. I have no idea if your church is descended from Waldensian, Paulitian or combination of the two or something completely different altogether. I shouldn't have assumed Waldensian who, after the sell everything start, later became aligned with Protestants.
Like many others, some became aligned with protestants. Some didn't. Just like earlier in history, some even aligned with Constantine (313 AD) and the unholy union of church and state. Many didn't however. Those that didn't, from the 4th century on, were also called Puritans as well as Anabaptist's.
I'm sure everyone here has been involved in countless debates on this topic over the years. A case can certainly be made for Eternal Security and I think Billy Graham summed it up pretty well when he wrote "When we come to Christ, He comes to live within us by His Spirit — and He will never depart from us. And when we come to Him, God adopts us into His family and we become His children — and He’ll never disown us or disinherit us. If He did reject us, it would mean our salvation depends on how good we are. But we can never be good enough, for God’s standard is perfection. Our salvation depends solely on Christ, Who died to take away all our sins." I love that! But as much as I love it I have to keep in mind that we have free will and that I don't believe that the Bible teaches unconditional election. I can't imagine someone being born again and filled with the Holy Spirit and then reaching a point where they come to hate God and reject Him. But I do believe that it can happen. The old argument of "Then they must not have really been born again!" doesn't fly with me simply because Paul told us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling and the whole "Free Will" thing. Our free will doesn't end when we're born again does it? Much as I love the idea of eternal security and the OSAS argument I have my doubts so I cannot with good conscience affirm it when asked by those less mature in the faith.
It honestly all depends on how you define "salvation" and "perdition" to begin with. Christianity as a whole can't even agree on those terms, much less everything that revolves around them. You may counter that with "that's not a matter of personal interpretation" ... to which I counter that there are large groups of people (literally millions and millions) over the past 2000 years that have been going round and round, including well-qualified scholars from the days of the earliest "Church fathers" ... People within Christendom have tried to formulate beliefs and creeds for 1900+ years. With each group trying to get it "more right" than the "other" group which they disagree(d) with. Mmmkay then. My bottom line argument is this: Salvation is not a what, but a who. I trust in the "who" to have a firm grip on the "what", and to work it all out according to His good pleasure. The second you turn salvation into a "what" and try to define it there, you're going to run into problems. If your response to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" is to study books written by other people, rather than turning to God and throwing yourself on His mercy ... I honestly can't help ya. Sorry. The invitation of Jesus wasn't "come to the Bible" or "come study books" or "come argue about what any of this means", but "come to ME". The very end of the Bible itself is about Christ coming to us, and us coming to Him ... so ... unless you actually do that, instead of trying to define doing it ... again, I can't help ya. Sorry.
Dani, I'm sorry but I haven't got a clue where you!r coming from. Salvation is simple: When judgement day come will Christ know me or will He say that He never knew me? People can say and do great, marvelous and even seemingly miraculous things but none of it will amount to a hill of dung if they didn't have a relationship with Christ. Because if He never knew you? Straight to hell you go. Moral relativism sounds real nice and it certainly appeals to our ears that love to be tickled but at the end of it all it will just be another shovelful of dung to throw onto the hill. Sorry, that's just how I see it. Edit: I really shouldn't have hit you with the M.R. Tag without giving you the chance to clarify. My apologies. Please clarify because it seems as if you're giving a M.R. - Universalism perspective in your posts in this thread.
How is relativism when I clearly stated that Salvation = Jesus ??? That's exact opposite of simple, because you just put the burden of salvation on a future date that nobody can do anything about right now, except, maybe, hope for the best? What does salvation look like right now, if I may ask?
"It honestly all depends on how you define "salvation" and "perdition" to begin with. Christianity as a whole can't even agree on those terms, much less everything that revolves around them." If 'Christianity as a whole can't even agree on' on the definition of salvation, then why should yours be taken as absolute? Or, does Christianity as a whole agree after all?
Salvation right now comes down to faith, grace, love and enduring until the end in the hope, based upon God's promises to us, that we will be judged worthy in the end. Jesus said the commandants boil down to essentially Love God with everything you've got and love others as you love yourself. Pretty tall orders. Jesus also said "If you love me you will keep my commandants." Which could be summed up with Love God and others but were helpfully more fleshed out with the sermon on the mount and parables. We have been justified and are in the process of being sanctified. ( Sanctified takes on a different definition depending on the context. I see 3 others see 1 and 1 only. Parson? ) We have become fellow heirs and have been washed clean - however- what of Scriptures that clearly detail that if someone in the church is engaged in ongoing willful sin how we are to approach them in the attempt to edify and uplift and if they refuse it? They are to be put out. And that's just an example of things we should examine in context. So, you know, what's simple to me might not be so simple to others. To me it really is as simple as I love God and know He exists because He preformed a miracle for me ( seriously) and I want to be judged worthy when that day comes. Not really out of fear but because I want to be what and who He wants me to be. I am His fully and completely and even each and every breath belongs to Him. I don't know if that makes sense or if I was just rambling.
I just yesterday read a fascinatingly disturbing thread on Twitter about #YouDontKnowEvangelicals ... and what happens when we start accusing people of being "fake Christians" or "not really saved" or "they weren't saved to begin with or they wouldn't act like this" ... and etc. The only "agreement" there was, was this: "These people don't act like I expect a Christian to act, so they're not saved." We do this all.the.time. We either consciously or subconsciously judge people's spiritual state according to whatever measures we think of as true. And once you do some digging about what measures are actually being used by actual people about actual other people --- it gets pretty absurd pretty quickly. I've looked for actual consensus since I became a believer, but the more you look, the more you see that there is very little in actuality. I've heard and seen enough in the last 20 years to accept that fact. I'm personally done bothering with that whole thing, so now I inspect fruit on an individual basis, and trust God to sort the whole thing out in entirety. And maybe that's the point. You can come at me with "I'm a Christian, because" all you want and quote 100,000 Bible verses to support your opinion, even ... unless I see actual fruit with my own actual eyes (and even some fruit is fine because we all gotta start somewhere), your words are meaningless. Act like the Christ I know, or be on your way. I may be an aspiring universalist according to the hope I have for the future ... but I'm no universalist at all when it comes to actual real people at this time in reality on earth. Because my standard is "Jesus" and like 99.9% fall short. Including myself. If i had to list actually qualifying people, then maybe Mother Theresa, Franciscus of Assisi ... maybe the apostles themselves (which are dead now, so who knows?) and a handful of others. Which is why I cling on to God as desperately as I do, because without His mercy, I.am.done. I have to let salvation be God's business, because the whole thing is actually looking pretty bleak from where I sit. If you find this highly contradictory, then I can't say I blame you.
I'm sorry, but what does this have to do with my reply? I'm contesting the suggestion that "it ... depends on how you define 'salvation'", and that 'Christianity as a whole can't even agree on these terms', when obviously they do. Why appeal to disagreement, suggest relativism, then offer an absolute answer? If it all depends; if no one agrees, then what makes what you have to say worth listening to? (I'm asking seriously, not rhetorically.)
We're using your terms, so 'they' are the Christians of 'the whole of Christianity', and obvious agreement is exactly that. You can't think of one thing that Christians agree about concerning, for example, salvation?
Jesus. That's about it. Honestly. Depending on who you ask, they may add a few or a great many things to that. You know from BF discussions that people even disagree on whether or not you have to be baptized to be saved. For example. So: Do you honestly only have to "confess Jesus as Lord" after you had an epiphany that He actually exists? Do you have to be baptized? Do you have to actually "repent" and what does that mean? Stop sinning? But we do sin anyway. Do you need to "repent and be baptized"? Is it enough to be sprinkled, or do you need to be dunked? Do you say a "sinner's prayer" at some "evangelism crusade", and then walk off into your life and go life it? Do you "say a sinner's prayer" and then join a church? Which church? What denomination? Do you need to observe the sacraments? Which sacraments? Does a baby go to heaven after it dies if it hasn't been sprinkled by a priest with holy water? Does a baby that's miscarried or aborted go to heaven, or is that baby a "sinner" that's "lost" by default. Is hell full of babies or not? Do you need to observe the Sabbath? How often do you need to take communion? Do you need the eucharist and the actual body and blood of Christ to be one with Him and be saved? What about TULIP? and etc.
If so, then why say it depends on definition, and point out disagreement? We all also agree that salvation is from God, that God is good, that salvation is good, etc. There's plenty to agree about. It would be more accurate to say, then, that there's plenty we agree about, though we might disagree on the details? Disagreement in itself is no legitimizer, by the way. Anyone who thinks baptism is necessary for salvation is as wrong as anyone who believes circumcision is necessary for salvation. There are such things as wrong beliefs, and opinions. Unsurprisingly, we can know the difference between wrong beliefs, and right beliefs, almost all the time. Do you think that wrong theology invalidates correct theology? Pointing to 'controversial' topics is neither here, nor there. Otherwise, you enter into the fray as meaninglessly as everyone else ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ On that, why is what you have to say valuable? If you gave me an answer to one of these questions, would you qualify it with the relativism you alluded to earlier?
Certainly there is agreement about these things, but this thread is about losing salvation ... so the question begs, how do you gain salvation to begin with? What is salvation, and what is perdition? It's a valid question. Who gets to define "wrong theology" and "correct theology"? The things I have listed are not "controversial" topics nor are they fringe debates. They are topics that have caused split after split after split into 250+ denominations we're now saddled with. So yea, all of it is meaningful. Very much so.